It is common for an owner of an asset such as a desktop or laptop computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), other electronic device, or even a briefcase or purse to lose the asset or have the asset stolen. When a lost or stolen asset such as a computer contains pertinent or confidential information, an owner often wishes to be able to locate and retrieve such asset immediately. The process of locating a lost or stolen asset that contains pertinent or confidential information may result in personal frustration, financial expense, and in the case of a corporate asset lost productivity as the asset's user requests and awaits a replacement. In addition, if the asset gets into the wrong hands, disclosure of confidential information and/or trade secrets may occur. The capability of locating a lost or stolen asset may be valuable to individuals, businesses, associations, schools, and even governments who store pertinent or confidential information on a personal computer (PC), laptop, server, PDA, cellular phone, or any device that could be stolen or lost.
In addition, a person may suffer great pain and sorrow if a loved one or pet runs away, is kidnapped or otherwise abducted, or is lost. For example, a child and the child's family may experience great tragedy if the child runs away or is abducted. A person with a mental disability may become disoriented or hurt if the person becomes lost and is not in familiar surroundings. When this situation occurs, a family member or caregiver wishes to be able to locate and have the person safely returned. However, no cost-effective method currently exists for tracking humans on a large geographic scale.
Most current tracking systems are used to track large, mobile assets such as an automobile. These tracking systems are neither feasible nor readily available to the public for the tracking of people, animals or small, portable mass quantity items such as a computer laptop or a briefcase containing important files. The current tracking systems do not adequately protect privacy and provide sufficient safety to be used for the automatic tracking of lost or abducted people. Furthermore, the current tracking systems are often used simply to help an individual locate an asset or areas near an asset, such as automobile global positioning systems that provide location-specific maps. These systems are not coordinated to prevent thefts and to locate and recover missing or stolen properties. Moreover, many of these tracking systems and services are not easily affordable to individual consumers or mass quantity purchasers such as corporate entities.
Exemplary existing tracking systems are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/926,203 by Contractor, with Publication No. 2005/0026629; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/843,203 by Holland et al. with Publication No. 2005/0026589; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/858,758 by Boling et al., with Publication No. 2005/0026627, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. However, each of these tracking systems have significant drawbacks.
The present embodiments are directed towards satisfying one or more of these problems.